Arbor Day Planting April 26

April 25, 2013

MACOMB, IL -- An Arbor Day planting of a Gingko tree will be held on the Western Illinois University Macomb campus at 1 p.m. Friday, April 26 in front of Sherman Hall. The planting will be followed by a special We Care mulching event for the oak trees around Sherman.

Forestry Instructor Paul Blome and WIU urban forestry management students will lead the tree planting. Rick Fox from Timberhill Nurseries donated the tree.

Western was recently designated a Tree Campus USA by the Arbor Day Foundation. The national Tree Campus USA program was created in 2008 to honor colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals. Western achieved the title by meeting the organization's five standards: maintaining a tree advisory committee, having a campus tree care plan, dedicating annual expenditures toward trees, hosting an Arbor Day observance and sponsoring student service-learning projects.

Western's landscape maintenance department, within facilities management, maintains more than 2,800 trees on the Macomb campus. Each fall, as part of the We Care event, Western's volunteer campus beautification program, trees are planted and/or mulching is completed around existing trees, and each spring, as part of Arbor Day, Blome and urban forestry management students lead tree plantings with elementary schools in western Illinois, a tradition that was started in 1993 by WIU Forestry Professor Tom Green. In addition, each spring semester, two trees are planted on WIU's Macomb campus to honor WIU employees and students who have passed away.